Thrift Treasure

I love thrifting.  It is treasure hunting, ecological, inexpensive (if you just buy what you need) and appeals to my creativity.  I think I have found a terrific treasure. 
First, a little background.  We have just moved into a new house and the kids are getting their own rooms.  I have been working on a series of projects to reflect each of their personalities. The little one predictably wants a PINK and PURPLE room.  Preferably with FROZEN princesses everywhere and a lot of glitter thrown in to boot. 
Pinterest has a lot of great ideas for updating thrift projects.  And I found a terrific update for my little girl's room, a chandelier, can you get more princess than that?

Check out this old brash finish chandelier I found at the thrift store.  In this photo I am starting to remove the glass panels by melting the solder between the panels and gently pulling them out.  It took a bit of patience with my trusty soldering iron but I managed it with no prior experience.  I am setting them aside--maybe I will be able to make something with them?
Here you can see all of the glass pieces off.

And here is the finished piece, pink, per request.  I sprayed it with Krylon Paint plus Primer glossy pink.  It is pretty tricky to get an even coat on such a detailed piece.  After the paint was dry, my daughter and I went to the store and picked out the embellishments; beads to hang for sparkle and cording to trim the area on the platform the beads are hanging from.  I also painted the 'candlesticks' with turquoise glitter.  The last touch was to purchase dimmable LED bulbs.  Her room has a dimmer and regular LEDs do not dim well.  OK, really the last touch was to hang the lamp but that was Dad's job.  Thanks Dad!

Pillowcase Dress

There is a store with a modest cotton fabric department near my house.  The store mainly sells 'dress' fabrics and does not cater to quilters.  Despite this I have found a few cute cotton prints that have inspired me to sew some items for my little girl.  (I would sew clothes for the boys too, but they wouldn't let me.)  My first attempt is a super easy pattern you can sketch yourself called a pillowcase dress.  While you can make this dress by upcycling your old pillowcases, none of my pillowcases are ready for retirement.  There aren't any thrift stores I can access in South Africa and besides this little elephant print was begging to be used.  The Prudent Baby blog has a terrific tutorial on how to make this dress if you are inspired to follow my example.  I used the general guidelines but measured my little girl for the specifics.  Tip:  give a little extra width in the chest area so it can grow with your child.  Here you can see my little girl with the dress nearly finished.  It is a little tight across the chest and tummy and she refused to wear it for more than a couple of minutes because it did not have any PINK in it.  Where do little girls get their pink obsession?                 OK, I lowered the sleeves and went scrounging for some pink fabric.  I used some of it for an applique of the elephant I enlarged from the fabric's pattern.  The elephant's eye is a little sequin and the ear is black Micron pen traced from the template. I created a ruffle on the bottom to add back some of the length I took out when I lowered the arm holes and and sewed a the tie for the top.  She is satisfied now and has agreed to wear it.  Whew.